1. Field of the Invention
An embodiment disclosed herein relates to a loading and unloading apparatus and method.
2. Description of the Related Art
An operation of loading a workpiece such as a finished product on a pallet for storage or transport thereof is referred to as palletizing. On the other hand, an operation of unloading a workpiece such as a supply part from a pallet is referred to as depalletizing.
An apparatus performing palletizing and depalletizing (hereinafter, referred to as “loading and unloading apparatus”) generally includes a robot arm. Since the robot arm transports workpieces basically by reciprocating motion, it generally has low transporting capacity compared with a machine such as a conveyor which continuously transports workpieces. For that reason, for example, if a loading and unloading apparatus including one robot arm is connected to a production line transporting workpieces by using a conveyor, a situation where the loading and unloading apparatus no longer catches up with the operation speed may occur as the pace of production becomes faster.
Accordingly, by connecting a plurality of loading and unloading apparatuses to the production line to perform loading and unloading operations in multiple locations in parallel, it is possible to cover the low transporting capacity of the loading and unloading apparatus and speed up the pace of the entire production.
There are disclosed apparatuses to improve the operation speed by allowing multiple robot hands to have access to a same pallet in, e.g., Japanese Patent Application Publication Nos. H8-305426 and 2003-191034.